ught to me. I cannot think about it--I cannot bear
to think about it; and if I believed it, I should go mad. My husband
is my life."

"Sit down and give me some account of yourself and Mr. Pendean. You
cannot have been married very long."

"Four years."

He showed astonishment.

"I am twenty-five," she explained, "though I'm told I do not look so
much as that."

"Indeed not; I should have guessed eighteen. Collect your thoughts
now and just give me what of your history and your husband's you
think most likely to be of use."

She did not speak for a moment and Brendon, taking a chair, drew it
up and sat with his arms upon the back of it facing her in a casual
and easy position. He wanted her to feel quite unconstrained.

"Just chat, as though you were talking of the past to a friend," he
said. "Indeed you must believe that you are talking to a friend, who
has no desire but to serve you."

"I'll begin at the beginning," she answered. "My own history is
brief enough and has surely little bearing on this dreadful thing;
but my relations may be more interesting to you than I am. The
family is now a very small one and seems likely to remain so, for of
my three uncles all are bachelors. I have no other blood relations
in Europe and know nothing of some distant cousins who live in
Australia.

"The story of my family is this: John Redmayne lived his life on the
Murray River in Victoria, South Australia, and there he made a
considerable fortune out of sheep. He married and had a large
family. Out of seven sons and five daughters born to them during a
period of twenty years, Jenny and John Redmayne only saw five of
their children grow into adult health and strength. Four boys lived,
the rest died young; though two were drowned in a boating accident
and my Aunt Mary, their eldest daughter, lived a year after her
marriage.

"There remained four sons: Henry, the eldest, Albert, Bendigo, and
Robert, the youngest of the family, now a man of thirty-five. It is
he you are seeking in this awful thing that is thought to have
happened.

"Henry Redmayne was his father's representative in England and a
wool broker on his own account. He married and had one daughter:
myself. I remember my parents very well, for I was fifteen and at
school when they died. They were on their way to Australia, so that
my father might see his father and mother again after the lapse of
many years. But their ship, _The Wattle Blossom_, was lost with